The Green Grendel

[campfire]

campfire submitted a new Build:

The Green Grendel (Boring Stuff)

This is the story of my 1986 M1009 CUCV (Military Blazer) and its adventures. TOC:

Hauling it out of storage
Tranny swap
Buttoning up drivetrain things
Finally driving it someday soon?

View attachment 229935

Read more about this build here...

 

[campfire]

The Green Grendel

It looks like I'm gonna have more truck time for the foreseeable future, so I am going to start an offroad build.

Big Blue is nice enough I don't think I wanna take it off road anymore.
The Great Smaug is less nice, but still nice enough that I would wince if the sheet metal got dented.
Both of them are nearly-stock rigs set up for street driving. So neither of them makes a good offroad rig. Both of them are summer-only (non-salt) vehicles, which is a large drawback given my snowy location.

My M1009 is rusting out the floor pan, so body damage & salt decay aren't huge issues. To that end, I am pulling it out of storage and fixing it up to be an off road "fun truck." I'm thinking it will be a relatively mild build (compared to CK5 "normal"), but still an opportunity to learn a lot of things that my street trucks didn't teach me.

The truck has been christened "The Green Grendel." 6.2 diesel trucks seem to need dragon names, in my book.

 

[campfire]

Initial stats:

1986 M1009 CUCV Blazer (Military K5). The CUCV trucks are very basic trucks with nearly no options. No dome light (or switches), no radio (or cutout), no carpet, headliner, or trim pieces. Basic vinyl seats, no console. Manual windows and manual locks). No side windows in the rear. I'm sure there are many other options that I'm forgetting about. But I don't have them. It's basically a tin box that moves down the road. Perfect place to start for a project.

Driveline-wise, these trucks came with 6.2 diesel engines coupled to TH400 transmissions driving 10-bolt axles, with G80 Gov-loc in the rear axle.

Military oddities include rifle racks behind the driver seat, brush guard, clevis mounts on both bumpers, a 24-volt electrical system (used for starting only ), CARC paint, and the infamous blackout lights.

 

[campfire]

Electrical-wise, the truck has a second ground-isolated alternator charging a second battery. This runs in series with the main truck battery and supplies power to the starter and the glow plug controller (and whatever military equipment was originally mounted in the trucks). Everything else is normal 12-volt Chevy hardware. The glow plugs are still 12-volt plugs, run through a large resistor bank. 12-volt conversions are common. The only oddball piece is the 24-volt starter.

 

[ryoken]

pics and plans are required...

 

[campfire]

pics and plans are required...

Working on it.

 

[campfire]

Just like Big Blue's build, I don't have many pictures of it yet. Picture taking was not my priority.

Here's an assortment of pictures of it from the last 2 years:

Summer 2013







Summer 2014



This one is from a couple months ago (Summer 2015):

 

[campfire]

My particular truck went through its mandatory coming-of-age G80 explosion, and the P.O. bought a 1978 14bff to install in the rear. He got the U-bolts snugged up and then let it sit until he got tired of it and decided to sell it off. I bought it with no brake connections (of either type), with pinion bearing and seal still in boxes and the driveshaft sitting in the floorboard. Oh yeah, and the shocks weren't connected either.



Here you can see the extra passenger-side battery, with the extra wiring "features" on the non-insulated firewall. I forgot to mention that the M1009 doesn't have any insulation, inside or out. It's just a tin can.

 

[campfire]

pics and plans are required...

My plans for the truck are still fluid. That's where the CK5 peanut gallery comes in. This is the part where I need lots of bad conflicting ideas to make my head spin.

 

[ryoken]

that's kinda where I was headed with that once you declared it as an offroad rig..


tire size, suspension, hacking, etc...

 

[campfire]

This TH400, with rare exception, does not shift out of 1st gear, and it leaks fluid. I don't like automatics, and I have no love for 3-speeds. I have almost all the parts needed for an NV4500 swap. So a tranny swap is on the menu.

The 14bff has shiny slave cylinders, so the PO apparently did some maintenance in there. But I know he didn't do the pinion. It came with 4.10 gears, which I did not want behind a 6.2 with 31" tires. I removed the gears and placed 3.73 gears inside the case. But the gears were never set, and I did not replace seals or bearings. And the pinion yoke has refused to come off so far.

I'm not a fan of the older 14bff axles with their ridiculous brake drum location. So I can either swap to discs () and finish buttoning up the axle and setting the gears. Or I can install an extra 1997 G3500 axle that I have lying around. 14bff with removable drums and 3.73 gears already installed. I think it sounds more fun to rebuild the van axle than to do the disc swap or live with the old drums. It would be exactly what I did to the Suburban last summer.

The front axle is still the stock 3.08 6-lug configuration. So I am looking for another 8-lug 3.73 axle to match the rear.

 

[campfire]

But choosing gearing will depend, obviously, on what size of tire I go with. I have a pair of decent 33" tires that I could use. Or I could go bigger.

Aside from installing one set of zero-rates, I haven't messed with suspension yet. So I wanna modify it, just for the fun of learning about this stuff. If that facilitates larger tires, I may just have to grab that set of 4.10 gears and finish up the pinion installation. One joy of the 14bff is that I can install that pinion equally easily into either case.

 

[campfire]

The truck does need to be street-worthy. I don't expect >20MPG out of it like the other rigs, but I'd like to be able to hit up Silver Lake at some point. This area is criss-crossed with trails that run for miles. And then turn into highways. So street manners will still be present.

My wife is short. Young children will be involved. So gaining height will probably require me to add running boards and handles.

Target terrain will be snow-covered trails. Dirt 2-tracks running through the woods. Some mud. Occasional sand. No rocks or desert trails.

Don't plan to hack up the fender areas. I don't like that look much (though it's slowly growing on me), and the fenders aren't too bad, rust-wise. When they fall off, I'll reevaluate this position.

 

[campfire]

The adventure starts in a couple days. The Grendel has been sitting at another shop for the last few years. When I'm there, I have access to several things I don't have at home. Torch, MIG welder, Lathe, etc. I have most of this week off work, and I'm going to go over and spend the time off playing with the Grendel. When the weekend comes I'll load it up on a trailer and bring it back home. I'll have pieces of 4 days in the shop to get required heavy work done.

Plans are to start patching up the holey floor and get the perches set up on the newer 14bff. Probably swap it in while I have the chance. Tranny swap I plan to do here. I don't have plans stabilized for suspension mods, so those will have to wait.

What else should I think about modifying while I have access to the tools?

 

[campfire]

Made it down to where the truck is, and now I have some questions. First a picture (of course )



As said before, the rear axle needs to have the gears set, I'm not thrilled with the older style of drum brakes, and a bolt broke off in the pinion yoke. I have a spare axle with the later style of brakes, but it is in need of a brake/seal rebuild, a new diff cover, and some rust remediation at the very least.

I am considering 3 options at this point:

1) rebuilding the newer axle, moving spring & shock perches, and swapping it out in the next couple of days (before I have to haul the truck home). This is what I was planning to do, but upon looking at it, a couple of options look like less work.

2) Converting the existing axle to disc brakes. I've had one set of e-brake calipers in the past, and I didn't enjoy getting them adjusted, so I would run normal calipers (no e-brake). I've avoided this in the past, but Wifey has decided that she's fine having no e-brake on this rig. And I've decided that I'm happy with whatever she wants.

3) Swapping the newer hubs & brake hardware to the older axle. I'm not sure how possible this is, but I think it would be easier than doing another axle swap. Assuming the parts bolt right on. Anybody done this option?









Of the 3 options, I'm leaning toward the disc conversion because it seems to be the simplest solution to the issues. And it avoids the need to wrangle yet another 14bff across the dirt floor.

Any thoughts?

 

[82355]

4.10's

Deeper if you can find them.

Martin

 

[campfire]

4.10's

Deeper if you can find them.

Martin

Wait...what? Does that have anything to do with my questions about brake options?


Gear-wise, I have a set of 4.10 gears for the back, but not the front. I have 3.73 gears that I could swap into the front, or I could look around for something else. But that's another problem for another day. Northern Wisconsin's other CK5 member has a D60 he's wanting to sell off, but it hasn't happened yet. If it comes with 4.10 gears, I'll probably buy that and swap the back to match. If it comes with 3.73 I'll probably stick with that. It's not like the 6.2 needs crazy deep gearing. And I do want it to still be decent on the highway.

 

[82355]

It's a play toy, not a hypermiler. You want gears.

Martin

 

[campfire]

It's a play toy, not a hypermiler. You want gears.

Martin

Point taken. I'm still stuck until I locate a matching front axle.

 

[campfire]

Calling martin...

Here are your requested pictures. I pulled out the CUCV wheels and put the caps on them so you could see how they look. Although you could have just looked at Adam's thread.







I like them, but I'm thinking they would look better in white.

This build is going 8-lug (like the Suburban). So these are gonna hafta wait until Big Blue is in need of newer rubber. Not sure when that's gonna be.

Till then, I have at least 1 broken truck that is a higher priority.